Travelucion's Cuba Marketing Plan

There are many opportunities to grow the Cuba travel business going forward through marketing. First, the notable U.S. change in policy toward Cuba and easing travel restrictions present a significant growth opportunity and if tourist travel restrictions are lifted, Travelucion Media could see a precipitous increase in sales in a very short period of time. For Travelucion Media to take advantage of the increasing interest in Cuba it plans to execute an aggressive marketing plan including the following:

Increase online marketing budget including third party online marketing, advertising, partnerships, and hiring dedicated individuals to oversee social media marketing and other digital marketing initiatives

Establish relationships/partnerships with large North American travel and cruise line companies, as well as other companies that provide various travel related services like water sports, ecotourism, convention services, specialty tours, etc.

Enhance corporate profile through physical marketing efforts in North America; this would entail a sales team or relationships with travel agents to help develop Travelucion’s profile

As all of Travelucion’s bookings are currently unaided, online bookings we can add people to physically assist in the booking process thereby capturing those customers that still want to talk to someone (i.e. call centre or chat room)

Continue to improve customer satisfaction and user friendliness with the booking platforms

Increase exposure by attending global industry conventions and trade shows but with a focus on North American

Develop mobile and web-based interfaces that will permit visitors to preview and book private homes directly from their phones, order classic car tours on demand, reserve private restaurants, tours and adventures in real time, yet with a uniquely Cuban style

Up until the present, Travelucion’s growth has been purely organic and the booking sales have been online, unaided sales. That is, all the growth generated to date has originated from the company’s own Cuba related websites with traffic being transferred to the e-commerce booking platforms. Additional external and online marketing has been almost non-existent and the online marketing has been limited to the company’s own websites. This is an advantage Travelucion Media has as there is no need to “pay for clicks” as so much of the travel industry is dependent on. This business model has worked well as a foundation model for a startup e-commerce company to monetize its technology and traffic to grow. First build a multitude of websites about everything related to Cuba, let the volume and traffic build over many years, then capture the web traffic and build in an e-commerce component to book travel to Cuba. The growth from this model alone has been swift over the last few years and Travelucion Media will continue to employ this strategy going forward but will look to enhance it.

The company plans to overhaul and modernize its websites that currently generate over 30 million page views a year to leverage this traffic and drive volume to the booking platform to monetize it further. An increased marketing budget through additional online advertising (online spending on content and/or pay-per-click) as well as a sales team could also grow the business over the coming years. Furthermore, Travelucion’s online traffic can also be monetized by selling it to other companies who are looking for it for their respective Cuba related businesses in the form of banner ads and digital marketing contracts.